ESA Director addresses ‘Galileo Application Days’ conference

4 March 2010

In his opening address at the ‘Galileo Application Days 2010’ conference in Brussels on 3 March, Rene Oosterlinck, Director of the Galileo Programme and Navigation related Activities, presented ‘unconventional Galileo applications’ – those related to topics other than positioning, navigation and timing.

Galileo and Global Navigation Satellite Navigation Systems (GNSS) can contribute to improved weather forecasts, fight against product piracy, synchronise and monitor power networks, determine Earth’s gravity field, monitor climate and global sea level rise, passively sense ice and the sea surface, monitor soil moisture fluctuations, detect atmospheric waves generated by earthquakes and tsunamis, and open new areas in space-time metrology – to highlight just a few of the unconventional and scientific applications. We are at the beginning of a new era.

… Galileo applications are not limited by technology,

they are limited only by our imagination!

The ‘Galileo Application Days 2010’ are being held 3–5 March in the Charlemagne Conference Center. In addition to the conference, there is an exhibition and an ‘Application Village’. Over 30 live demonstrations and presentations of innovative applications developed through the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research, the European Satellite Navigation Competition and the ESA Technology Transfer Programme are on public view in the Village, situated outside the European Commission Headquarters building.